Moon of madness
the same the publicity has done the exhibition a lot of good. Forgive
my laughter, but, you see, we know nothing whatever about this
picture!”
“What!”
Jack’s exclamation was not merely rude; it was explosive.
“It has never been here,” she went on. “Dozens of people have asked
about it. But _we_ have never seen it. The secretary ’phoned the
_Planet_ this morning and was told that they had used the photograph
in good faith.”
“But who sent it to them?” I asked.
“I am afraid I can’t tell you,” was the answer. “All we could learn
was that it had been sent in by a responsible agency. Personally, of
course, we are rather grateful.”
In silence Jack and I departed. Milton was standing in Bond Street
just outside the doorway.
“Good-bye, Milton,” I said. “Let’s hope it keeps fine.”
“Good-bye, Decies,” said he, jauntily imperturbable.
Jack glanced sharply up at M. Pierre’s windows; but only the wax bust
rewarded his scrutiny.
“I am beginning to hate your friend Milton,” he confided.
“He is not so popular with _me_,” I confessed.
“Come round to the club,” Jack suggested. “This thing calls for cool
reflection.”
I left him at four o’clock. We had telephoned Nanette’s mother, only
to learn that Nanette had not returned. The whole thing was
provokingly mysterious. It had entirely diverted my thoughts from the
more serious problem of the capture of Adolf Zara. In fact, I could
not shake my mind free of it.
That Nanette had been hiding in the establishment of M. Pierre, I no
longer doubted. And that Milton had some part in the comedy was clear
enough. Poor fellow, I regarded him in a more charitable spirit than
Jack had at command. Nanette had been using him--for what purpose I
could not imagine--and his reward would be small.
Some association between Nanette, at M. Pierre’s, and Milton, in the
entrance of the Modern Gallery, seemed to be established. But since
Nanette’s photograph was not in the gallery, why this association--and
conveying what?
Nothing--in so far as my bewildered brain served me.
So I mused, as I drifted along Pall Mall. I determined to hunt up
O’Shea, when, suddenly, I saw something which called me to prompt
action.
A taxi turned a corner at the very moment I was about to cross. In it
sat Nanette--and Adolf Zara!
It is in such moments of stress as this that vacant cabs magically
disappear from the streets. No fewer than five taximen had solicited
my patronage during the few minutes that had elapsed since I had left
Jack.
Now, with a dangerous agitator wanted by the British Government
disappearing in the distance, from end to end of Pall Mall not a taxi
was in sight!
When at last one crept into view, pursuit was out of the question.
If I had been perplexed before, perplexity now gave place to
consternation. The comedy of Bond Street had been no more than a gay
curtain draped before a stage set for drama. I tried in vain to allot
the actors their proper rôles. What part did the missing photograph
play? How came Zara in the cast? What of Milton? And what of Nanette?
It was not far to my chambers, and I hurried back, with the intention
of ’phoning O’Shea.
I met him at the door.
Those who enjoyed the privilege of seeing Edmond O’Shea in action
relate that when things were going hopelessly wrong he would fix his
monocle immovably in his eye and retain it there, contrary to
regulations, throughout the hottest fighting. He was wearing it now.
“Hallo, O’Shea!” I called. “This is lucky! I want to see you badly.”
“I came to see _you_, Decies,” said he. “There is something I wish you
to know.”
Having opened the door and hurried him upstairs:
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” I began. “But Nanette met Zara this
afternoon.”
O’Shea stared at me incredulously.
“Where?” he demanded.
“I don’t know where. But I saw them together not ten minutes ago.”
He hesitated for a moment; then:
“Tell me all about it,” he said calmly.
In as few words as possible I outlined the events of the day,
terminating with my glimpse of Nanette and Adolf Zara together in Pall
Mall.
“It is a blank mystery to me, O’Shea,” I said. “I simply cannot
understand what it’s all about.”
“To me,” he replied, “it is equally, but painfully, clear.”
“What do you mean?”
“In the first place,” said he, “our friend the inspector borrowed your
negative of Nanette.”
“The inspector! In heaven’s name, what for?”
“Because he happens to be a clever man at his trade. I declined to
allow him to insert a paragraph in Nanette’s name. But he was by no
means defeated. He employed certain official channels and secured the
publication of her photograph.”
“With what object?”
“You recall the words that appeared under the picture?”
“Clearly. But the original was _not_ in Bond Street.”
“Quite unnecessary that it should be, Decies. Our friend the inspector
was in Bond Street, however.”
I think I was gaping like an imbecile.
“You are simply confusing me, O’Shea,” I managed to say.
“Yes,” he admitted. “No doubt the scheme is difficult to grasp. You
see--the inspector banked on Zara’s infatuation for Nanette. He judged
it, no doubt, by the risk that Zara ran in communicating with her.”
“Good heavens!” I cried. “I see it all! He hoped in this way to lure
Zara to the gallery?”
“Certainly. He thought that Zara would probably come, first, to secure
the picture, and, second, possibly to obtain a glimpse of Nanette in
person.”
“And you say the inspector was there? I didn’t see him.”
“I did!” said O’Shea grimly. “He was in an office at the end of the
gallery--with the door ajar. The girl in charge knew he was there on
some police business, but she did not know that it had any connection
with the missing print. I gave him a crisp five minutes. But,
officially, he was within his rights--and he knew it, dash him!”
“O’Shea,” I said, “I can’t fit Nanette and young Milton into the
picture.”
O’Shea’s expression changed, softened.
“I wonder?” he murmured. “She has a high spirit, and, I am beginning
to think, a keen brain. Decies!”--he suddenly grasped my
shoulder--“how happy some man is going to be, some day!”
He turned aside abruptly, and walked into the inner room where my
modest library formed a haven of refuge. Vaguely, as we had talked, I
had grown aware of voices below. My man was one of the speakers; the
other voice had been inaudible throughout.
Then I heard the door open behind me. I looked. And there was Nanette!
But, even as I was about to greet her, I checked the words. I had seen
Nanette merry; I had seen her sad. I knew her moods of coquetry and of
contrition. But, always, save once, I had thought of her as a child. I
did not know her as I saw her now.
“I thought you were my friend,” she said. “I thought I could trust
you. If I had had one little doubt I would never have told you----”
“Nanette,” I began----
But she checked me with a sad, angry gesture.
“You are no better than _he_ is,” she went on bitterly; “for you
helped him. Heavens, what a fool I have been! And he only thinks of me
as a _bait_ for his traps!”
“Stop!” I cried. “For heaven’s sake, stop, Nanette!”
“He was right,” she pursued, stonily ignoring me, and looking
unseeingly, miserably, before her as she spoke. “Captain Slattery
came. But I had arranged to warn him.”
I remembered Milton and his watch upon the window of M. Pierre. Then,
abruptly, her mood changed. The blue eyes, which were so sweetly
childish, blazed at me.
“No man, however bad he is, shall ever be lured to ruin by _me_. Tell
Major O’Shea that Captain Slattery is laughing at him!”
“He is entitled to laugh, Nanette,” said a grave voice.
O’Shea came out from the recess and stood watching her.
A moment she confronted him, then:
“Good-bye!” she said.
Turning, Nanette ran from the room. I heard the street door slam.
“O’Shea!” I cried. “Why didn’t you tell her?”
“It is better she should think as she does,” he replied. “Fate has
done what I failed to do. Now she will forget.”
I have often wondered, since, if he believed it would be so. I have
tried, knowing the man’s honesty of soul, to conceive that he hoped it
would be so. What _I_ believed or what I hoped I cannot pretend to
record. But, at some hour past midnight, I learned that Nanette was
unwilling to ignore the promptings of her heart.
Dejectedly, I sat smoking a lonely pipe, when the ’phone bell rang. I
took up the receiver. I think I knew who had called me, even before I
heard her voice.
“Is that you, Mr. Decies?”
“Yes, Nanette.”
“I am so miserable, because----”
She hesitated.
“Because of what?” I prompted gently.
“Because I never gave you a chance to explain. Oh, Mr. Decies! Tell
me--_is_ there something I don’t know?”
“Why, yes--there is,” I replied. “You don’t know that Major O’Shea and
I were totally ignorant of the plot to trap the man you call Captain
Slattery.”
“Oh!” came, as a sort of sigh, broken by a sob. “And I told him----
Mr. Decies, do you think you can ever forgive me?”
“I _do_ forgive you, Nanette.”
“And do you think---- Good-night!”
“Nanette!” I called. “Nanette!” But there was no answer.
CHAPTER XXIV.
PETER PAN
A delicious haze hung over the Serpentine, by which token I knew
that a warm day might be expected. Votaries of Peter Pan were few, for
the morning was young as yet, but I sat watching him in his green
temple and I thought how puzzled some archæologist of the future was
going to be.
Strange to reflect that a Scotsman should add to the ranks of the
gods; stranger still that his immortal child should find himself so
completely at home upon Olympus. More and more strange the reflection
that none of the older gods were jealous.
Children of course came to pay tribute, and I think it was this
morning I learned for the first time that there are many juvenile
citizens whose day is incomplete unless they have made offering--a
laugh, a pointed finger, a fleeting glance--to the god of that dear
world which is hidden from most of us behind the gates of innocence.
To many an exile under palm and pine, the coming of spring means
dreams of crocuses and Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.
I was suffering from a fit of physical and mental restlessness. I
could not clear my mind of the idea that some imminent peril
threatened O’Shea. That Nanette was involved, I feared, but tried hard
not to believe. Experience of that Red organization known as the S
Group had shown its members to be frankly unscrupulous; and Nanette
had blindly involved herself with one of them. I knew why she had done
it, but the man, Adolf Zara, could not know. For Nanette, Zara had
ceased to exist. I doubted that the reverse was true.
The peace of the morning and the beauty of the lake mocked me. In the
long encounter between O’Shea and the S Group, honours had gone to the
enemy. But the battle was not yet over. Instinct and common sense
alike told me that the worst was yet to come.
My ceaseless meditations along these lines had earned me a sleepless
night, and I think I had sought out this spot beside the Serpentine
with some vague idea of finding peace.
Now, coming out of a brown study and looking up, I observed a figure
approaching along the path. It was that of a girl very simply dressed
in a gray walking suit, and wearing a tight-fitting hat, which I
should have described as claret-coloured but for which the fashion
journals no doubt have a better name. Her fingers listlessly
interlocked, she came slowly along, looking down at the path and
sometimes kicking a pebble aside. Never once did she look up, not even
when she arrived before Peter Pan, until:
“Good-morning, Nanette!” said I.
Then she stopped as suddenly as though a physical obstacle had checked
her.